BETWEEN THE LINES

Obama spies on friendly media

Joseph Farah is founder, editor and chief executive officer of WND. He is the author or co-author of 13 books that have sold more than 5 million copies, including his latest, "The Restitution of All Things: Israel, Christians, and the End of the Age." Before launching WND as the first independent online news outlet in 1997, he served as editor in chief of major market dailies including the legendary Sacramento Union.

What can you say about an administration that uses the Internal Revenue Service to go after its political foes?

What can you say about an administration that lies systematically about events leading up to the torture-murder of one of its ambassadors, U.S. military personnel and other U.S. citizens in Benghazi?

What can you say about an administration that uses drones to spy on its own citizens and to kill them overseas without due process?

What can you say about an administration that monitors the phone records of the largest news-gathering organization in the world – and one of the friendliest to that administration?

The only fair assessment is that it is a rogue administration – one that represents a frightening departure from any previous historical precedent in its authoritarian nature, one out of touch with the rule of law, one that is revealing itself to be prone to tyrannical policies and one that has committed so many impeachable offenses it’s becoming difficult to count them all.

Almost on a daily basis now the police-state tactics of the Obama White House are on display. They no longer need to be ferreted out by a handful of independent journalists and the citizen blogosphere. Even the Big Media that have coddled Barack Obama and shielded him from scrutiny for nearly five years are shocked by what they see.

The latest abuse was revealed by the Associated Press – which was also the victim.

The shocking report goes on to explain both work and personal phone records were seized and scrutinized.

“In all, the government seized the records for more than 20 separate telephone lines assigned to AP and its journalists in April and May of 2012,” the report continued. “The exact number of journalists who used the phone lines during that period is unknown, but more than 100 journalists work in the offices where phone records were targeted, on a wide array of stories about government and other matters.”

AP is, of course, outraged – and today sent a letter of protest to Attorney General Eric Holder, who, I predict, will not finish out his term in office.

“There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of the Associated Press and its reporters,” said the letter. “These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP’s newsgathering operations and disclose information about AP’s activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know,” wrote AP President and Chief Executive Officer Gary Pruitt.

Obama rose to power suddenly and, with the help of friendly media like the AP, was unstoppable in his bid for a second term. But he may be the cause of his own political undoing. Nobody likes what they are seeing in Washington today – not the left nor the right nor the mushy middle, not the so-called “mainstream media” nor its burgeoning alternative, not conservative legal watchdogs nor the American Civil Liberties Union.

The Obama administration is running out of cheerleaders.

Heads are going to roll here soon. They must – if only to provide Obama himself the cover he needs to continue in office. Soon his friends in the Democrat-dominated Senate will be forced to abandon his indefensible policies as we get nearer to the 2014 election cycle.

This is big.

It’s a game-changer.

Obama is fighting off too many scandals – Benghazi-gate, IRS-gate and now Press-gate.

If this were almost any other president in American history, he would already be writing his resignation letter.

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Has Obama crossed the political Rubicon by spying on the Associated Press?

No, every president has done this in the past in the interest of national security

No, I'm sure he had good reasons for obtaining the phone records

No, if the AP had nothing to hide, it shouldn’t worry about what government found

No, he's too slippery to pay a political price for this abuse or any other

No, it's OK, as long as Bush didn't do it. Nothing to see here, move on!

No, Obama and his attorney general would never do anything that's not legal, transparent and good for America, would they?

No, AP is part of the mainstream media that enabled Obama's election - twice. They should suck it up and lay in the bed they made

In the words of a favorite media darling: "What difference does it make?!"

What does it matter? Most of the mainstream media get their talking points from the Obama administration anyway

It doesn't matter. The mainstream media will defend the Obama administration to the bitter end

Yes, first they came for tea partiers, veterans and patriots, and the mainstream media didn't speak out ...

Yes, but this is just more scandal released by the White House to distract from Benghazi

Yes, maybe the mainstream media will finally wake up to the danger of this administration now that they are targets

Yes, if the Obama administration did this to the Associated Press, how many other Americans has it tapped?

Yes, the hallmark of any leftist regime is the loss of the freedom of the press

Yes, Obama is revealing to the entire world his true authoritarian nature

Yes, Obama is running out of goodwill and friends

Yes, Obama is becoming a liability to his own party

Yes, that's it! This administration has been involved in one scandal after another. It's time for impeachment!